1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cloud computing, and more specifically, to methods and systems for enabling control to a hypervisor in a cloud computing environment.
2. Description of Related Art
Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like the electricity grid. Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for Information Technology (IT) services based on the Internet, and it typically involves over-the-Internet provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources to user systems as a service over the Internet. Most cloud computing infrastructure consists of reliable services delivered through data centers and built on servers.
A hypervisor, also referred to as a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM), allows multiple operating systems to run concurrently on a host system, such as a host computer or server providing cloud computing services to host systems. Such a feature is often referred to as hardware virtualization. The hypervisor may present guest operating systems with a virtual platform and may monitor the execution of the guest operating systems. In this way, multiple operating systems, including multiple instances of the same operating system, can share hardware resources in the cloud computing environment.
Hypervisors are generally classified as being either Type 1 or Type 2. A Type 1 hypervisor (or native, bare metal hypervisor) runs directly on the host's hardware for controlling the hardware and for monitoring guest operating systems. A guest operating system thus runs on another level above the hypervisor. A Type 2 hypervisor (or hosted hypervisor) runs within a conventional operating system environment, with the hypervisor layer as a distinct second software level, and the guest operating systems running at another level above the hardware.
Servers can be over-featured for the fundamental needs of a cloud computing service provider. For example, current cloud computing servers include a firmware abstraction layer such as a basic input/output system (BIOS) layer, a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI) layer, or an Open Firmware layer. The support of these layers and other firmware can be costly to a server vendor in terms of time and expense.
Accordingly, for at least the aforementioned reasons, there is a desire to reduce the complexity of host systems providing services to user systems in a cloud computing environment.